Paris, France Honeymoon – Day 2 – 7.19.11

What a way to spend my 33th birthday than on my honeymoon, with my wife and in France!? The second day we decided to take a day trip to Monet’s Garden in Giverny and The Palace of the Versailles. Most of the museums and sights in Paris are closed on Tuesday for some reason so it was good to escape for the day.

We woke up and the weather was crappy again. Raining, drizzling and at times a complete down pour. I brought an umbrella with me that I’ve been using since the first time I went to Europe in 2005. And it wasn’t locking in so pretty much I had no umbrella to use for most of the day. Figures I don’t have an umbrella on a really rainy day. We grabbed some pastries and started to walk for 15 minutes or so to go to the tour company. It was going to be an hour(+) drive to Monet’s Gardens so Kristen and I took a little nap. It’s something about bus tours that makes me fall asleep every time I’m on a bus.

It was raining the entire time we drove to Giverny, yet when we got off the bus the sun was peaking out of the clouds. We thankfully lucked out with the rain in the few hours we were at Monet’s Gardens. The gardens was perhaps one of our favorite things on the Honeymoon trip. So many different flowers and everything looked just beautiful. The gardens were packed with people, which was to expected so you had to wait sometimes to not have people in your photos. Kristen and I checked out the first gardens a little bit, and then headed over across the street to the lily pad ponds! It was so great to see the ponds in person, since we’ve been seeing those in Art history books and in museums most of our lives.

After the gardens, we had a nice free lunch at some place near a river and met some nice people from California, UK and Australia. Back in the bus we went and it was off to Versailles. We weren’t so lucky with the rain this time, and immediately bought an umbrella from one of the annoying people selling umbrellas, Eiffel towers and other things tourist get scammed into it. At this point, I didn’t care who I was buying an umbrella from, if I didn’t have one I would have been drenched beyond belief. It took 45 minutes or so to get into Versailles, even when you were in a group. Saying this place was crowded is an understatement. It was like Disney World on a bad day, except in the rain and annoying people with umbrellas ready to take your eye out. We finally got out of the rain, and went inside…which was just as crowded. We had about an hour to see the inside of the palace and like 10 minutes to see the ground. That was disappointing but with the rain, seeing all the grounds wasn’t in the cards anyway.

My birthday was definitely an interesting day, just wish the weather was better at Versailles. But not like it would have mattered anyway since it was so crowded. Some people suggest just taking a train to Versailles and spending half day/day there and that might be the better option. But seeing Monet’s Gardens was definitely the highlight of the day and the trip.